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I’m New Here: Weeks Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three…
July 26, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
Time seems to be advancing at an ever-increasing pace. Each day is crammed with more tasks than can possibly be accomplished; I think this means I am beginning to get the hang of things. But Monday brought me up short a bit as I searched titles tracing a particular story which initially diverted to the Freedom Ride. As intriguing as the tone in those accumulating reports of bus rides through the South was, the heading on a neighboring column wrested my eyes and my thoughts. I had to know the reason that divorcees (such a fancy and outmoded term) spent a night in jail. At least that’s what I believed at the time. However, since it has been four days since I read the report and I am still ready to sound forth at a moment’s reflection, it might have been better if I stuck to the familiar angst over bus seats allocated by color of skin.
In case accompanying photographs do not tell enough story, women went to jail because deadbeat dads (such a crass and modern term) did not pay court-ordered child support. Just that. The year was 1963, and I suppose I am not meant to expect much else from the era — particularly that the freedom to assemble could possibly, legally, be constrained to a total of four persons.
Because, that was the crux of the charges — the reason for the headline: Night in Jail Makes Divorcees Contrite. “They promised that if they ever picket the County Building again to protest lagging support payments they will keep within the legal limit of four.” Fifty-six years ago a woman who was not receiving justice promised by the legal system had to promise to forego rights granted in 1791 by the First Amendment, even as she attempted to bring pressure to bear on the powers that be. Of course, I’m not foolish enough to think that this tiny fragment that sparks my ire is as important than any of the other Civil Rights /liberties that seem to have too limited of a citizenry to whom they are applied. And I am fiercely glad that the group of four swelled to an angry mob of twelve, bringing so much havoc upon the town that these single mothers had to be jailed in order to preserve the peace. Perhaps they were granddaughters of those who marched for Suffrage . It may be that they were inspired by other heroes that brought about change. Because things are not the same today. Here it helps me to take in the 1963 newspaper as a whole, reading again of the laws that were eventually impacted by two different groups. In 2019, wearied with seemingly insurmountable conflict, offense, discrimination and outright hatred, the neighboring headline, “11 Riders Quietly Leave for Mississippi Test Run” provides some perspective. Multiple barriers to equality remain, but many have been knocked down. Many barriers have been knocked down, but perhaps some have been worn away through the centuries by those whose stories are woven through old newspaper pages, those who find their own, quiet, persistent way to push back.
The July (2019) Newsletter from Rare & Early Newspapers…
July 22, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Each month the staff of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers sends out a newsletter to our members which includes special offers, discounts, alerts to new inventory, and information related to the rare newspaper collectible.
The July, 2019 newsletter:
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Welcome to the July 2019 edition of our monthly
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The Village Voice… Greenwich Village, New York…
July 19, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Nat Hentoff, John Wilcock, Norman Mailer, Ezra Pound, Lynda Barry, Robert Christgau, Andrew Sarris, J. Hoberman, James Baldwin, E.E. Cummings, Ted Hoagland… Broadway and Off-Broadway theater reviews, the annual Obie Awards, upstart musicians and actors, progressive and left-leaning journalism… the beatnik, hippie , and Bohemian cultures…
Although we rarely use this space to announce new inventory, we’ve recently taken in a collection which is unique enough to warrant an exception. As many know, The Village Voice, the iconic newspaper from Greenwich Village, recently stopped printing new issues. However, over the years they had saved samples of a majority of their issues for the purpose of eventually creating a digital archive, and once done, we were able to procure the lion’s-share of their own collection. What a treat! Although I personally am unable to endorse portions of their content, their impact on culture as far as newspapers are concerned may very well be second to none. Over the next year or so collectors will begin to see listings appear through our website and our eBay store. In the meantime, if there are specific issues you would like to add to your collection, and can appreciate their provenance, please be in touch at guy@rarenewspapers.com. Our holdings include most issues from 1956 through close to the final publication.
Great Headlines Speak For Themselves… Black Dahlia found…
July 11, 2019 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
The best headlines need no commentary. Such is the case with THE BOSTON POST, Massachusetts, January 17, 1947: “FORMER MEDFORD GIRL FOUND SLAIN“
I’m New Here: Weeks Twenty & Twenty-One…
July 4, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
It’s hard to put into words all I learned last week, other than conclude (again) I work in an amazing place. Distinct events blurred together as we completed the regular tasks of a pre-catalog release week, simultaneous with the receipt of eleven pallets of a new title.
As I know the least, I am the least helpful in this bulk intake process. Everyone else has done it before – making space where none seems apparent. So I stayed out of the way, fielding phone, email and web orders to the best of my ability.
This week, however, marks the Fourth of the July, and I took the opportunity to look at some surrounding details of 1776 through the real time lens of reported news.
The Sons of Liberty met under the Liberty Tree. It’s not an American fable; I read the notice calling for attendance and providing an alternate location in case of overflowing turnout. People staked fortune and life to sign the Declaration of Independence, and Philadelphia papers published their names alongside that document. Paul Revere was a working man who bought advertisements in The Massachusetts Centinel to draw more customers into his silver shop. Somehow, the risk of this bid for colonial freedom becomes more meaningful as I consider the sacrificial participation required from everyday people who had plenty to occupy them in their own private lives. Regular folks became significant because they stepped up when there was every reason to keep their heads down.
Today I am thinking about the farmers and shopkeepers, the printers and the writers who looked beyond immediate concerns to take a stand for the implications on centuries to come. Surely these are some for whom the words resounded, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary…” I won’t pontificate aloud, but there are so many contrasts to the perspective I readily adopt within my plush and easy American life.
Fresh perspective on the human story feeds the impulse: the more I find out, the more I want to know. But the disconcerting truth is that the more I search, the more versions I find. The best course of action just might be to head back into the annals and read it for myself…
Announcing: Catalog #284 (for July, 2019) is now available…
July 2, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
- Catalog 284 (in its entirety)
- Noteworthy Catalog 284 ($250+)
- Combined Catalogs (current, w/ remnants of previous)
Don’t forget about this month’s DISCOUNTED ISSUES.
(The links above will redirect to the latest catalog in approx. 30 days, upon which time it will update to the most recent catalog.)
Snapshot 1885… Early flight (?)
June 28, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
The following snapshot comes from The Scientific American, New York, dated May 9, 1885. Thankfully, the wise saw, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” eventually proved to be true.
Snapshot 1914 – the first warship passes through the Panama Canal…
June 25, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · 2 Comments
The following snapshot comes from the Boston Evening Transcript dated August 18, 1914, which announces the first-ever warship making its way through the Panama Canal. Quite historic.
I’m New Here: Week Eighteen…
June 14, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · 2 Comments
This week I learned to back up my data files with more diligence. I also learned that I shouldn’t boast of finishing a task early, as I am liable to then fall far behind (particularly if I don’t save my work).
Most importantly, I learned that we don’t know what we don’t know, and we can’t learn it until we know something.
As I was immersed in the newspaper coverage of significant dates in American History, I found that my vague idea of the Civil War as being somewhere around 1862 kept me from understanding the significance of Lincoln’s assassination within the timetable of the war of brother-against-brother. The great conflict was in the mopping-up stage; Grant had definitively beaten the Confederate troops. And President Abraham Lincoln, the man who took up the burden of holding together the Union, was shot in a theater where he was out for what was termed by one report as “an evening of respite”. It’s suddenly more tragic, and those long lines formed by a mourning populace seem so reasonable a response by a shocked nation.
Over the weekend, the relative of a Timothy Hughes Rare and Early Newspapers employee was touring the facility and paused over text running down the right margin of the cover of a small periodical from the 1920’s. “You know who that is,” she asserted. We didn’t. We thought it was an issue about the game of hockey, positing the question whether it would or would not last in the United States.
It turns out the featured author of the issue was one Rose Wilder Lane, the woman who penned the tales told by her mother of pioneering days in what eventually came to be called The Little House on the Prairie series. An accomplished writer and reporter, many of her short stories were published in Harper’s Bazaar and Saturday Evening Post. When Rose was in her seventies, she traveled to Vietnam in order to provide a female perspective on the war for the readership of Woman’s Day Magazine. And I learned all of this because someone who knew a bit, put together pieces and asked a question.
Juxtaposed with this whole journey following strands of the known into discovery of the unknown, was an overheard discussion about the lack of liberal arts education received by the up-and-coming generation. In an era of information available by voice command, almost everything that can be known is, theoretically, accessible. But how will any of us know the questions to ask if we don’t have a base of knowledge from which to begin? A narrow foundation must by its very nature constrict the breadth of potential growth.
Anyway, this is a great place for contemplation of deep things. And, since I lost my first draft, I have the opportunity to contemplate the same subject for the second time. 🙂
By the way, the Liberty Magazines are nifty compilations somewhat in the vein of the later Reader’s Digest, packed with advertisements and helpful hints right beside news of the day.
Snapshot 1862… Civil War inner-family strife takes its aim at Lincoln…
June 11, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
The following snapshot comes from The Crisis, Columbus, Ohio, dated May 7, 1862, which printed the death report of Abraham Lincoln’s brother-in-law, and includes considerable Lincoln-directed angst.